"The full house was made up largely of upper-middle-class young ladies, stylishly dressed, carefully made up, brought into town by private cars or suburban buses..."

"... for their night to howl, to let go, scream, bump, twist and clutch themselves ecstatically out there in the floodlights for everyone to see; and with the full blessings of all Authority: indulgent parents, profiteering businessmen, gleeful national media, even the police.... The spectacle of all those anguished young girls at Carnegie Hall, trying to follow 'I Want To Hold Your Hand,' seems awfully vapid compared to the young men and women who sing 'I Woke Up This Mornin’ With My Mind (…Stayed on Freedom).' The Beatles themselves are lively and not without charm. Perhaps their greatest virtue is their sense of humor and self-caricature. But Beatlemania as a phenomenon is manna for dull minds."

Such was the opinion in The Nation magazine in March 1964.